WATCH： Civil liberties group says feds haven’t met the threshold to invoke Emergencies Act
Episode Stats
Words per minute
146.99817
Summary
In light of the country being brought under the Emergency Act, we spoke with Abby Deschamps, Director of Criminal Justice for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, to get a good snapshot of what the Emergencies Act is all about and just get an understanding of where we re at in our country.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Good evening. I'm Melanie Risden with the Western Standard. In light of the fact that the country has been brought under the Emergency Act, we thought we would check in with Abby Deschman, Director of Criminal Justice for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, just to get a good
00:00:29.980
snapshot of what the Emergencies Act is all about and just get an understanding of where
00:00:37.620
we're at in our country. Thanks for joining us, Abby. My pleasure. So why don't we start with
00:00:43.860
the Emergencies Act and what that gives the government the ability to do?
00:00:49.580
Yeah, so this is really an extraordinary piece of legislation. It authorizes the government to take
00:00:56.300
very concentrated power into the cabinet. So it gives a lot of power to the prime minister
00:01:03.760
and the cabinet ministers to make very far-reaching orders in order to address
00:01:10.640
national emergencies. The type of national emergencies that the legislation anticipates
00:01:15.820
are things like war, pandemics that can't be managed by the province, very serious threats
00:01:24.080
to Canadians' health and safety that can't be managed by the provinces using existing laws and
00:01:31.400
legal powers, such that they are a national emergency. So it's really quite serious national
00:01:37.240
emergencies. And if that is met, it gives a lot of power to the federal government to enact orders
00:01:44.400
that otherwise, you know, that authorize activities that would otherwise be under the current law.
00:01:50.820
Right, and I understand that this particular legislation has never been invoked in Canada.
00:02:00.180
It did replace the War Measures Act, which was invoked back in 1970 for the FLQ October
00:02:08.520
But I mean, at that point in time, there were six people killed, there were actual terrorist
00:02:20.800
So at that time, bringing in a War Measures Act seemed to make sense.
00:02:26.740
But how is this, in your opinion, not fitting for what we're facing right now as a country?
00:02:35.000
Yeah, so as I said, it really focuses, and you have the text right up there, on serious threats to individuals' health and safety that are national emergencies that can't be handled by the provinces under existing law.
00:02:49.120
And right now, we certainly have many protests that are of national concern, right?
00:02:55.440
They are impacting many communities across the country.
00:02:58.760
They are impacting international trade relationships.
00:03:03.760
But we are very concerned that it doesn't meet the threshold in the Emergencies Act of serious threat to Canadians' life or safety.
00:03:12.960
and that the current laws in many instances are quite adequate to deal with the emergency.
00:03:19.760
We've seen local police services acting under the laws and powers that they currently have,
00:03:26.400
and very successfully managing the vast majority of protests across the country. That really,
00:03:31.360
in our view, is not the type of national emergency that legally justifies the use of
00:03:36.400
these extraordinary powers and i will say on the on the um war measures act and ccla actually
00:03:42.080
objected to the use of the war measures act in the 1970s uh during that flq crisis because we
00:03:48.240
did not think it was a national crisis it was certainly a crisis in quebec right there's
00:03:52.960
absolutely acts of terror going on in quebec but again we had a government that enacted a national
00:04:00.880
emergency and arrests and restrictions on civil liberties took place across the country and in
00:04:06.720
retrospect that enactment of the war measures act in the 70s is now seen as a lesson of what
00:04:13.440
not to do it is now generally seen as having not been a legitimate use of emergency powers and has
00:04:20.960
led to really serious civil liberties violations for individuals across Canada at the time
00:04:26.720
And what is the biggest concern? What is the gravest concern with this being invoked now?
00:04:34.400
Let's find individuals' rights and freedoms across the country. So the types of measures that the
00:04:38.320
government says they're contemplating, and we don't have the specific orders yet, but the types
00:04:43.600
of measures that they've talked about are extreme. So they've talked about seizing individuals'
00:04:49.840
assets without a court order, if those assets have been used to support protests or blockades.
00:04:55.040
They've talked about freezing bank accounts of people who have supported the blockades.
00:05:01.360
They've talked about restricting public assemblies, restricting travel to and from specific places,
00:05:07.680
introducing the power to imprison people or fine people if they contravene emergency orders that
00:05:14.560
come out under this act. So really very strong and new powers that circumvent a lot of the judicial
00:05:22.320
oversight that we would expect when seizing property or freezing bank accounts,
00:05:27.120
and certainly would circumvent the normal legislative checks and balances
00:05:31.840
that we would expect when new laws or orders of this type are passed.
00:05:36.480
Now one of the examples that Justin Trudeau used when describing some of the initiatives that they
00:05:43.440
will use underneath this act one of them was talking about forcing businesses to produce
00:05:52.640
services for the government giving them no no choice such as the tow truck companies who so far
00:06:00.480
have been you know reluctant to to help support hauling away vehicles and protesters from from
00:06:10.800
locations right and that's that's another aspect of this you know we usually think about this type
00:06:16.400
of activity in wartime right commandeering a factory um or even in the pandemic right ensuring
00:06:21.600
that we have the ppe equipment necessary to confront a national public health concern
00:06:27.440
and you know the fact that specific individuals are concerned about participating in um one order
00:06:34.400
activities it you know it doesn't necessarily make it a national emergency people should have
00:06:39.760
the ability to decide uh where and how they provide services um and say whether or not they
00:06:47.280
want to actually provide services to you know the government or to another company so um this is
00:06:53.600
again a measure that uh would force people um into actions that they may not otherwise be willing to
00:06:59.600
take um and the government could pass law right the government could pass legislation um that does
00:07:06.080
all kinds of things through the normal legislative channels. It would take longer,
00:07:11.520
for sure, than an emergency order, but it would be subject to at least the democratic oversight
00:07:16.160
that we would expect in the normal course of a democracy. Now, speaking of that democratic
00:07:23.520
oversight, this technically has not been put in place. It still needs to be voted on or brought in
00:07:31.440
by um by the parliament and and senate and cabinet where where does it sit until then
00:07:40.240
yeah so it has to be brought before parliament uh within seven days but that doesn't mean that
00:07:46.400
the government can't start putting in place orders under this current um declaration so it's actually
00:07:54.880
an ex post democratic check so the government gets to act first and then later go to parliament and
00:08:00.960
say will you ratify this will you you know say that this uh declaration of emergency uh meets
00:08:07.440
your approval and the same thing happens with orders they can pass specific orders under the
00:08:12.880
emergencies act and then within two days they have to bring it to parliament and then parliament does
00:08:18.480
have the um choice about whether or not um they're going to um ratify those orders so so this has a
00:08:26.000
two-day uh deadline or i i was understanding it's longer yeah so this particular so this declaration
00:08:32.320
of the emergency has seven days before it has to be put before parliament the specific orders
00:08:37.920
uh which we still haven't seen right this is the general declaration of the emergency there they
00:08:42.480
have to come up with specific orders those would have to be put before parliament within two days
00:08:48.000
Okay. Well, I guess we will be watching this closely. And I'm not certain what recourse
00:08:57.240
there would be for people who say, have their have their assets frozen, or you know, their bank
00:09:03.540
accounts seized, funds seized. I'm not sure how that that works out. Is that a situation where
00:09:09.960
people would need to say use the legal system to sue uh how how does the what's the recourse for
00:09:17.880
that yeah no there's no clear recourse set out in the law um for people who are directly impacted
00:09:25.160
they would probably have to you're right start a legal case um and argue that the order itself
00:09:31.400
uh was illegal wasn't authorized by the legislation or was unconstitutional um so it does uh put a lot
00:09:39.880
of um onus a significant burden on people who might be subject and impacted by these orders
00:09:47.880
and clearly for the uh sorry the Canadian Civil Liberties Association a group that fights for
00:09:55.640
uh rights violations this is uh this is concerning yeah absolutely you know we have thousands and
00:10:03.080
thousands of protests across this country every year the vast majority of them are
00:10:09.080
non-violent peaceful protests many are disruptive right locally disruptive and sometimes intensely
00:10:16.200
nationally disruptive but that's core democratic activity you know to think that we are going to
00:10:22.920
invoke a national emergencies act in response to what in many communities are non-violent but
00:10:31.640
disruptive protests is deeply concerning and it's not about the subject matter of the protest right
00:10:37.560
nothing in this law specifies that it's the trucker convoys or these specific protests
00:10:44.440
that the law applies to. This is a broad law with national application that applies to
00:10:51.640
blockades and it's a concerning breadth of law right now and it's a very concerning precedent
00:10:59.720
that's being set about how governments respond to protests. Absolutely, concerning for all
00:11:07.480
canadians i would think uh and and the threat or the risk of this be becoming a slippery slope
00:11:13.960
i would assume right you know we've we've now lived through a pandemic where emergency orders
00:11:19.480
have been somewhat normalized uh if we think back to the beginning of this uh it was really
00:11:25.160
unprecedented to see a series of emergencies um states of emergency being declared in each
00:11:31.560
of the provinces we have now many of us lived under some version of the state of emergency for
00:11:36.360
two years and one of the real concerns is that we're going to get used to the erosion of democratic
00:11:42.040
controls we're going to get used to the concentration of power within the executive
00:11:47.160
branch we're going to get used to emergency orders um that have severe limits on our rights and
00:11:53.320
freedoms uh coming up from government and i and i do think that you know i i question whether we
00:11:59.880
would be seeing the use of the Emergencies Act federally if we hadn't had two years of states of
00:12:06.440
emergency to deal with our public health situation. I'm not saying those states of emergency weren't
00:12:10.600
justified but we do need to be extremely careful about normalizing the use of what is supposed to
00:12:16.440
be really exigent and really targeted emergency legislation. Well absolutely and the Western
00:12:24.920
standard reported uh just today too that um uh the the coots blockade had a seizure of uh weapons
00:12:34.200
a cache of weapons uh that uh the pr the the protesters the main organizers for the blockade
00:12:41.480
knew nothing of they knew nothing of the people who were associated with those weapons
00:12:46.600
uh and and as well we are hearing reports coming out of ottawa about the uh the story where
00:12:53.800
2000 weapons were were robbed or stolen from from a vehicle and there's there's a serious
00:13:03.240
concern that those are going to also be potentially planted uh in the in the protest in ottawa
00:13:11.960
yeah and those are absolutely very serious concerns you know at the coots
00:13:16.840
order uh that was quite effectively seemingly dealt with uh by police using their existing
00:13:23.720
powers um you know the it is hard to get a handle on what the actual security situation is frankly
00:13:31.080
because we don't have access to all the information that the police have um the situation in ottawa i
00:13:36.280
think is unique nationally in terms of the um scope and scale and how embedded that protest is
00:13:45.560
but that one city cannot be the basis for a national emergency. The fact that we have had
00:13:51.720
concerns about violence, concerns about weapons at a few different sites doesn't mean that overall
00:13:59.080
these protests are violent and doesn't necessarily justify the use of emergencies legislation.
00:14:08.040
We frequently see protests that have a few people or even you know a couple hundred people out of a
00:14:13.640
approach us to 10,000 that engage in property destruction and violent acts. And when that
00:14:18.920
happens, at least we are very clear to stand up and say the actions of a few cannot cancel out
00:14:26.220
the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly rights of the many, many, many thousands of people
00:14:30.960
that gathered there to peacefully express their views. Right. And that's what we're hearing from
00:14:37.240
the organizers on both fronts in Coutts and Ottawa is that they they stand for freedom they stand for
00:14:44.440
and they're there protesting that peacefully and I would from from all reports we're hearing from
00:14:51.240
both groups both camps that they do not believe that the weapons that are being potentially
00:14:58.680
associated with these protests there there are rumors that they're potentially being planted so
00:15:05.960
so that it gives reason or gives the right to invoke these kinds of emergency acts within
00:15:16.440
the context of how they're being brought forward. So it's definitely unfolding as we go through
00:15:24.600
each day and we'll keep an eye on how this plays out. We'll also be obviously paying attention to
00:15:32.040
hear the the different um uh procedures and policies that they plan to to bring forward
00:15:38.680
as you mentioned i think you called them um the the actions that they're going to bring forward or
00:15:44.440
uh the emergency orders yeah the order yeah the orders thank you uh so we'll be we'll be paying
00:15:49.960
attention to that for sure and uh you know the prime minister has mentioned that these will be
00:15:54.520
be geographically targeted. They will be timely and short-lived. So I guess we will also be
00:16:03.400
watching that. So Abby Deschman, Director of Criminal Justice at the Canadian Civil
00:16:08.760
Liberties Association, thanks very much for joining us and for shedding a little bit more
00:16:13.560
light on the Emergencies Act that is now invoked in Canada. Yeah, my pleasure.
00:16:23.140
This is great new technology just coming online now in the digital currency world.
00:16:28.640
Algodex is a great way for you to use the digital currency Algorand in your day-to-day transactions.
00:16:36.180
Can you imagine a world where you don't have to buy a cup of coffee using a federal dollar?
00:16:41.360
And you don't even have to use the American federal dollar.
00:16:43.600
You don't have to use the euro or the pound sterling.
00:16:46.100
you can use real money digital currencies that are not at the beck and call of governments and
00:16:51.660
inflation. Algodax is making digital currencies usable in a day-to-day basis.